


Cyborg

by neensz



Series: fisher'verse [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:18:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neensz/pseuds/neensz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been three years, now, since I woke up in the hospital, pumped full foolish of the good drugs, to the base surgeon telling me I was lucky I’d survived, and "Oh, hey, we had to <em>chop off your leg</em>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cyborg

**Author's Note:**

> Transferring over my old stuff from LJ as an incentive to pick some of it back up. Originally published on LJ 16 May 2012, but have marked it as newly published because it is my _favorite_ story in this series and I want more people to read it.

It’s been three years, now, since I woke up in the hospital, pumped full foolish of the good drugs, to the base surgeon telling me I was lucky I’d survived, and _Oh, hey, we had to chop off your leg_.

That’d been a shock. Honestly, until I’d looked down and seen it missing, I thought the doc was joking; the base hospital was always full of off-color and poor-taste morbid jokers. She hadn’t been joking—come to think of it, I don’t think that one even knew how.

So I was down a leg and a career, because there was no way the Marines were gonna keep on a one-legged grunt, and when they sent me back State-side everyone was expecting that I’d be depressed and morose and miss my leg more than anything. Now, I’m not one of those happy-go-lucky, always cheerful types, but I can remember, to this day, that IED explosion—I still get nightmares about it, to tell you the truth—and I’d thought I was a goner.

I never expected to wake up at all. So the fact that one leg (and a bunch of pins in the rest of my body, and a re-inflated lung) was all the price I had to pay for getting the chance to fix up all those last minute regrets that’d flashed through my mind in that split second between when I knew something was wrong and when the APC hurled itself up in the air like it was trying out to be one of those bulls for the PBR, well, I kinda felt like it was worth it. It wasn’t like I was going to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, neither, seeing as they’ve got fake legs nowadays that can probably hook up to your iPod, let alone help you get around just like a real one.

So the fact I still run up against that damn awkward pity in the eyes of my aunt and uncle whenever I visit them, well, that cheeses me off something fierce. If it’s a hot day, I’m gonna wear shorts, not hide away what is _apparently_ supposed to be something shameful beneath a pair of jeans that’d have me roasting in minutes. I was in the service of my country when I lost that leg, which sure ain’t something shameful; I worked damn hard on my physical therapy to get back my freedom in the form of a new leg, rather than be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

My fake leg ain’t something to be ashamed of, no sir. It’s my freedom. I’m grateful to it each and every day I wake up and don’t have to sit my ass in a wheelchair just to get to the john to take a leak. I can run and jump and do most anything just as good as I used to, and if it took me a little more work to get back there, well, that’s something to be proud of, in my eyes.

So after three hours of purposefully not noticing the way Aunt Marge’s and Uncle Mike’s eyes always aimed themselves anywhere but my robot leg (hell, a little more technology in it and I could probably be a superhero), well, I just had to get out of that house. I was visiting them since I was in the area and it was the family thing to do, but I couldn’t handle it no more. So I excused myself politely, and went to search out my baby cousin Mordred to say a proper goodbye before I ran off.

After a fair while searching, I found him in the backyard, of all places—it had to be a hundred degrees out if it was anything—hunkered down in an impressively deep hole scarring the overgrown and scorched brown field of the back yard. I stayed back a few feet from the edge as I peered down at him in the shadows of the bottom of the hole, seeing as the edge of it didn’t look too stable. The sideways light of the sun (just now starting to think about setting, as it was ‘round seven in the evening, by that point) barely reached down far enough into the pit to glint bluely off his hair, which was still as night-black as the day he was born, even though everyone had predicted his baby hair would fall out and come back in lighter.

Mordred had always been a strange, quiet child, but this was something new. “What _are_ you doing down there?” I asked him, because while he’d always been a little bit weird, well, weird was interesting. He was probably my second-favorite cousin out of the pack of them, because of it (right behind the eldest of all of us, Morgana, who’d always been like a big sister to me).

“Diggin’.”

“To China?” I asked with a grin, setting myself down on the edge of his pit so I could dangle my legs (well, real leg and fake leg. Robot leg. _Superhero_ leg) down into the hole. They reached just far enough down that I could gently tap the side of his head with my shoes, if I felt like buggin’ him. I did.

He swatted at my legs. “No, _dummy_ ,” he huffed at me, sitting back on his heels and propping his hands on his hips—he looked just like my Mama (except for the way he took after the dark-haired side of the family and didn’t actually look like her at all) when he did that, which was a mite disconcerting—to glare at me disdainfully. “I’m practicing my archaeological excavation techniques. I’m gonna be an archaeologist.”

“Like Indiana Jones?” I teased him.

He rolled his eyes at me so hard I was a little afraid he’d never get them back normal. “No, _Arthur_ , like a _real_ archaeologist.” He stared at me a moment, looking far older than his twelve years, before his eyes flicked down to my prosthetic. I braced myself for the look I knew was going to show up in his eyes any second now, and started shifting back from the edge of the hole in preparation for getting up; I was done with pity, today.

He surprised me, though, by grabbing at my prosthetic to keep me from going anywhere. “Hey, is this the new one?” he asked excitedly, starting to feel up my robot leg in a way that might have disturbed me if I hadn’t done it myself the first few days of wearing it. “Wow, the connections on this must be _awesome_ ,” he squealed. “Rotate your ankle!” he commanded, and I obeyed as I laughed.

It was awful nice to have someone else see my fake leg as the supremely cool invention it was, rather than something shameful like most people did. Even if he _was_ my twelve-year-old second-favorite cousin.


End file.
